Never Give Up : The 20th Century Odyssey of Herbert Zipper
Written and Directed by Terry Sanders
Produced by Freida Lee Mock & Terry Sanders
DVD & VHS (40 Minutes)
1995
It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short at the 68th Academy Awards in 1996
The extraordinary story of Vienna born musician and conductor Herbert Zipper who survived Dachau, Buchenwald, and a Japanese
concentration camp (He was fleeing Nazi occupied Europe to the Philippines where
he worked as a conductor for an orchestra.
He also recalls how he was arrested by Japanese soldiers for speaking out
against the Axis powers.) to become one of the great music educators of the world,
continuing at 92 to bring music to the inner city schools of America.
In Dachau, Zipper organized secret concerts using makeshift instruments.
He learned the lesson that music and the arts are essential to the very existence of life. For the last half of the 20th century, Zipper has pioneered
in bringing professional orchestras into America's inner city schools.
Herbert Zipper (91) in Los Angeles